


where does the good go

by consultingwives (westminsterabi)



Series: Quinlock Shorts [5]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: (a bit of) angst, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Bisexual John, Cuddling, F/F, Femlock, First Kiss, Fluff, Kissing, Lesbian Sherlock, POV Sherlock Holmes, Rule 63, gender swap, post-S3, post-tab, third person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-07
Updated: 2016-05-07
Packaged: 2018-06-06 20:26:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6768730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/westminsterabi/pseuds/consultingwives
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"And how do you know, when to let go?"</p><p>Sherlock never knows when to let these things fester, or at least she never knows when to nip them in the bud, and she f*cked up fantastically with John Watson. As soon as she felt this thing growing inside her, this love that she can't name, she should have left, cut herself off, but instead she let John keep looking at her with those doe eyes and keep calling her incredible and keep living in the room upstairs and eventually it was too late. </p><p>Love. </p><p>-</p><p>In which Sherlock confesses something to John and the tarmac can go screw itself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	where does the good go

_Where do you go with your broken heart in tow?_

It's just when Sherlock's heart feels as though it will break from the pain that everything falls into place. Broken hearts are real; people die from them all the time, and Sherlock thinks that that might be the case for her today, right here, as John is out filing her divorce papers as the worst reminder that John no longer loves Mark but doesn't love Sherlock any more for it.

 

_What do you do with the left-over you?_

She hears John's feet coming back over the stairs--her tread is heavier than Mrs Hudson, lighter than Mycroft, more rhythmic than Greg's. Sherlock thinks to herself that if John were merciful she'd have left Sherlock a little more time to mourn. At least Mark is no longer in the picture, no longer there between them. That doesn't mean that John thinks about her that way, she reminds herself, lying in her bed, staring at the ceiling and wondering where she went wrong.

 

_And how do you know, when to let go?_

 

Sherlock never knows when to let these things fester, or at least she never knows when to nip them in the bud, and she fucked up fantastically with John Watson. As soon as she felt this thing growing inside her, this love that she can't name, she should have left, cut herself off, but instead she let John keep looking at her with those doe eyes and keep calling her _incredible_ and keep living in the room upstairs and eventually it was too late.

 

Love.

 

_Where does the good go, where does the good go?_

She buries her face in the covers and allows herself one great sob, one moment to screw up her face and let the pain shine through before she hears John call her name. She pretends to be sleeping.

 

John comes in anyway. "I know when you're faking, Sherlock."

 

_Look me in the eye and tell me you don't find me attractive._

"Look, I've just divorced Mark, can I please get some sympathy? Some reassurance? Something?"

 

She huffs and Sherlock listens to her footfalls leading outside the door of Sherlock's room, and she thinks to herself that this is _exactly_ where she went wrong, by being herself, that's exactly how she fucked up. If she weren't idiotic, ignorant, ridiculous, maybe John would have married _her_ instead.

 

Shit, can't think about that. Can't go there.

 

_Look me in the heart and tell me you won't go._

 

She pushes the covers to the side and swings open the door. She has a perfect view of the back of John's head (Mussy hair, covered in cowlicks. She hasn't had it cut in months, and it's starting to curl at the nape of her neck.) She swallows and shuts her eyes. She tenses her jaw and lets the pain show again, just one moment, just for this one moment before she says John's name and John turns around.

 

"Oh. Were you actually sleeping?"

 

"No."

 

"Oh." John relaxes, evidently pleased that she'd correctly deduced that Sherlock had been faking.

 

_Look me in the eye and promise no love's like our love._

"John."

 

"Yes?"

 

She lets her eyelids flutter closed and she wonders how she's going to do this, how the words will feel once they've been spoken and lifted off her chest. She wonders if they'll catch in her throat the same way that the words _I'm gay_ always have, whenever she's talking to Mycroft or her mother or someone who asks her point-blank. But she can't let them, she has to put them out there someday. It might as well be this day, this golden afternoon after John is officially divorced.

 

_Look me in the heart and unbreak broken, it won't happen._

John is looking at her expectantly. Sherlock is still at the entrance to her room, so she takes three steps forward towards John, hoping that closing the distance will make this feel like ridiculous, less painful.

 

"Look, John, I'm saying this without any expectation." She gazes down at her hands, her big white hands, which are trembling. She locks her fingers together to keep them steady. "I am saying this because it's something I've lived with for the last six years and it's something that I cannot live any longer without revealing." She inhales and her heart is pounding harder than she thinks it ever has. She feels ill, she wishes that she would collapse and not have to say these words (but she can't bow out, not like on the tarmac, " _Sherlock is a boy's name,_ " ha) but John is looking at her expectantly, so she raises her eyes from her hands and meets John's eyes.

 

_It's love that leaves and breaks the seal_

"I have loved you since practically the day we met, and I hope that this knowledge doesn't make you uncomfortable."

 

John looks astonished, confused, bewildered. At least, if Sherlock could read emotions properly, she thinks that's what's flickering across her best friend's face.

 

_of always thinking you would be real_

 

She looks down at her hands, her interlocked thumbs, and chokes back a sob. She grits her teeth and turns around to go back into her room, hoping that she hasn't completely destroyed the last six years of her life. At least Mrs Hudson will probably make her dinner without complaining once her heart is irretrievably broken.

 

_happy and healthy, strong and calm._

She lets one sob pass through her lips, inadvertently, but she inhales deeply and composes herself and takes the three steps back into her room before John's voice rings through the flat.

 

"Sherlock." She sounds tender, empathetic, ready to comfort Sherlock and assure her that this doesn't change their friendship at all, that she won't view her any differently, that she will do her best to help her heal.

 

Again, that's what Sherlock thinks she'd read, if she could read it.

 

_Where does the good go?_

 

"Sherlock." She says her name again. Voiceless alveolar fricative, open-mid front unrounded vowel, voiced alveolar lateral approximant, open back unrounded vowel, voiceless velar plosive. ʃɜːlɒk. Even in this moment, her stupid brain won't switch off, stop analysing everything to death.

 

_Where does the good go?_

 

Sherlock turns around, brow furrowed, wishing that John would show her some mercy in this moment and let her sulk away without further humiliation.

 

_What do you do when you're in love and the world knows?_

 

John fixes her with a look in the eyes. "You clot," she says, biting her lip. "You absolute, ridiculous, spectacularly blind idiot. I love you too, you dolt. You amazing woman. I love you too."

 

One more sob escapes Sherlock's throat as she realizes that this moment has truly happened. This is no dream, here is John Watson in front of her proclaiming her love, like she has imagined so many times without hope.

 

_How do you live so happily when I am sad and broken down?_

 

"Can I kiss you?" asks John, softly, licking her lips in that way that she always does.

 

_What do you say it's up for grabs now that you're on your way down?_

 

Two tears stream down Sherlock's face, six inches above John's, and she nods, so John stands on her tip toes and wraps her arms around Sherlock's neck for support and Sherlock bends slightly at the knees to make it easier and their lips meet.

 

_Where does the good go, where does the good go?_

 

Sherlock has received a few kisses in her time, and she has never thought that kissing was all it was cracked up to be. But when John's lips meet hers and John presses against her urgently and their bodies mould to each other, she realizes that all impressions of kissing that she's had before now have been entirely, shockingly wrong.

 

_Look me in the eye and tell me you don't find me attractive._

 

She feels John's pelvis shift and grind against her. She can feel John's tongue teasing at hers, tangling with hers and caressing the inside of Sherlock's mouth ever so gently. John's hand wanders towards Sherlock's left breast and strokes it.

 

_Look me in the heart and tell me you won't go._

 

"Is this okay?" she murmurs when one of them comes up for breath.

 

"'Course," says Sherlock, whose mouth presses against John's again right away.

 

_Look me in the eye and promise no love's like our love._

 

They finally break apart and look at each other in the eye. Sherlock has never seen John look so reverent, and she wonders if maybe she hasn't been paying attention before. John's hand has hers clasped in it, and the feel of John's warm touch feels as if it's sending tingling, pleasant electric shocks up Sherlock's forearm.

 

_Look me in the heart and unbreak broken, it won't happen._

 

John stands on her toes again and gives Sherlock a peck. Sherlock craves more but is too embarrassed to say it.

 

"Sherlock," says John unflinchingly, her dark blue eyes staring at Sherlock, as if John is looking into her soul. "If you're okay with it, I want to have sex with you. If you're not ready, I understand. But I want you to know."

 

"Yes. I—yes."

 

_It's love that leaves and breaks the seal._

 

"Yes what?"

 

"Yes, I want to have sex with you as well." John gives Sherlock's hand a squeeze, and swings it to and fro.

 

"This is the beginning of something," says John, looking at their clasped hands. "I have no way of knowing where this could possibly go, but I love you more than I think I have ever loved any human being, even Mark—no, _especially_ Mark. Every man has been a pale imitation of you and this isn't a proposal but I want to spend the rest of my life with you and if maybe one day you wanted to get married or something..." John swallows. "Nothing would ever make me happier."

 

"This can be a proposal."

 

"Or we can take it slow," says John.

 

_of always thinking you would be real_

 

"I don't want to," says Sherlock, definitively.

 

_happy and healthy, strong and calm._

 

John grabs Sherlock's other hand and swings them both back and forth, smiling at her like she hasn't smiled since everything with Mark happened. They stand like that for a moment, until John quietly suggests that they go to Sherlock's bed, and Sherlock says yes so they take the three steps over to the door.

 

_Where does the good go?_

 

They don't have sex, even though Sherlock's body is crying out for it, craving John's touch and swollen with it. Instead the two of them move as close as they possibly can and feel each other's skin and the fleshy breasts that keep colliding every time they move.

 

_Look me in the eye and tell me you don't find me attractive._

 

John wraps her arms around Sherlock and pulls her close. Sherlock doesn't think she's been this close to someone since university, or that she has felt this ecstatic since...well, she's not quite sure when. She has been depressed, drug-addled, since before she can really process memories and although the feeling of John's body against hers is no cure, she can't help but feel a kind of lifting in her heart, as if someone has cut away the dead matter and left it fresh and new.

 

_Look me in the heart and tell me you won't go._

 

Sherlock wants to ask her why she married Mark, why the two of them had let things go so entirely wrong before they'd let themselves have this moment. But she doesn't want to spoil the feeling of John's hair tickling her chin, or the feeling of John's arms wrapped around hers. She also decides that for now, it doesn't matter why or how. Nothing really matters except the reciprocity, the feeling that John loves her back, _John loves her back._ It's incredible and she can't process it or understand how everything could possibly have fallen into place. It's the one outcome she never envisioned in that moment that she'd resolved to tell John.

 

 _Look me in the eye and promise no love is like our love._  
  
John's breathing grows regular and even though it's only mid-afternoon, she's fallen asleep, Sherlock realizes. And she drifts down as well, in John's embrace, which hasn't broken. She can't imagine that life could always be like this, but she realizes that with the stars aligned (as they seem to have done), it very well could always be like this. Last night was perhaps the last night that she will ever spend alone.

 

_Look me in the heart and unbreak broken._

 

(It will happen).

 


End file.
